Spent today outside with my 2 year old son, drawing pictures on the floor with some big Crayola Yard Crayons.  Never had so much fun since I was a kid.  The colours are bright and bold, go on easy, mix well - and you can put light on dark - and are so simple to use even an adult can do it.  

Since he's obsessed with Pixar's Cars and Cars 2, I drew Lightning McQueen, Tow Mater, Finn McMissile and Francesco Bernoulli.  It was great to see Sam's face when he saw what I was drawing, and being a little kid, gave an instant, honest response.  The fact he recognized them all without any prompting was all the assurance I needed that I'd done a reasonable job.

We also had great fun sploshing paint around.  We'd bought some big rolls of paper, loads of washable paints, brushes and sponges, so Sam had the time of his life making a fine old mess with them.  Claire cut up some Potatoes into shapes - including a bus and a car - which he loved stamping around.  Naturally, he got as much paint on him as the paper.  :) 

sometimes the simple things are indeed the best Sam.  I think we sometimes forget that in the madness that is CG apps

Could be.  I always preferred hands on stuff but there's a lot to be said for CG, too.

Weird when you think about it; I'm extolling the virtues of hands on art by drawing CG characters.  :D 

colour me JEALOUS

my likkle one is 25 lol, even me likklest G'son is into blender(an it seems I need to learn the game engine to help him

lol I dont even play games )

Sounds like a lot of fun Sam! You're so blessed!

Yep, I feel very privileged to have such wonderful children.  Even when they're being complete ratbags they're still wonderful. 

Ilona's not really bothered about drawings at the moment, since she's still at the age when eating your own shoes is a big deal.  She'll probably be pestering me for pictures of stuff in a year or so.

its these little things that make life live-able , soon enough they will be distant memories, video them whenever possible, someday these memories will be priceless and being able to re-view them a blessing... you're gona miss this when they're grown and gone...i know i miss my kids, even though i see them often...

:O)

For me it's writing; getting an image right is just too much of a PITA and nothing ever turns out that well it seems save for the odd render.

@ JAFO - seeing as I'm an old codger I somehow think I'll be dust before they're gone.  At least, I hope so.

@ Winter - I love writing and music but drawing has always been my first love.  I prefer building stuff in 3D to actual renders these days but that's more due to my slow ancient machines and having Poser 6 and its limitations.  No doubt when I upgrade I'll be a rendering fool.  But when all is said and done, give me a load of paper and a bunch of pencils and I'm happy.  

Last night I sat and sketched some quick prelims for posters I'm going to paint for the children's rooms, then, in full child mode, I got out the coloured pencils and spent a happy hour or so colouring them in.  Great fun. 

I miss the 'drawing in chalk on the driveway' age.  

That does sound like Fun Sam -- been a long time now since I did anything on Paper.  Hope I haven't lost my touch......

My five month old just learned to blow raspberries ;-) Already growing up so quickly...

I hadn't drawn anything on paper for years, until I recently started getting into 3d modelling a bit... started sketching out ideas for that before actually trying to model. I still find it much easier to organise my visual imagination using pencil on paper...